Michael Cahill could be speaking for a lot of Tipperary hurlers right now when he says he’s taking nothing for granted but only each game as it comes.
Sunday’s Allianz Hurling League semi-final against Waterford may come too soon for Cahill, who missed most of Tipperary’s championship run last summer with a hip cartilage injury. He’s now approaching full fitness, having undergone the surgeon’s knife back in January, and last week’s team training camp in Spain also served him particularly well.
Cautious Still, Cahill is understandably cautious about how soon he’ll be back to full match fitness, especially given the week that’s in it: news that Lar Corbett was now ready to return to training was certainly tempered by the announcement that Noel McGrath would be out of action for the coming moments as he undergoes surgery for testicular cancer.
“The last three months were slow, but as the months went on the fitness started to improve that bit better,” says Cahill.
“It’s a gradual process. I had the operation on January 7th to repair the cartilage because the hip was at me the whole time last year. I also had my MCL [medial collateral ligament] kind of half torn and that put me out as well.
“So towards the end of the year I thought I’d just see out the Thurles Sarsfields campaign and get it done then. If I had left it any longer it would have got worse and worse. It was very restrictive on my running – pace is kind of my thing, being first out to the ball.
“But there’s so many players getting it done now. You might get away week to week with the club, be okay for the following weekend without training at all. But when you’re in with the county, expected to train Tuesday and Thursday, you don’t get to train proper. You don’t get the break that is necessary to allow it to heal.
“I was lucky enough, with last week’s training [in Spain]. But it’s game time I’m looking for now, whether that’s training games or club games, to get me back up to pace.
“You can do all the fitness you want, but at the end of the day, when you’re put in a match situation marking some fast fella, you need to be up to the pace.”
Tipperary aren’t exactly at crisis point yet, but with Séamus Callanan suspended, and Cathal Barrett and Kieran Bergin also out injured, it may well be that Cahill features at some stage on Sunday.
He admits it was difficult to watch from the sidelines last summer as the likes of Paddy Stapleton stepped into the defensive role which Cahill would likely have filled had he been fit.
“Well, you can call it mixed emotions. As a player you want to be playing, and personally it was disappointing not to be in there, not see game time. But then, you see the boys doing well and the team winning and you’d be delighted for the boys then.”
